Church meets Culture: musings and found objects by a dancing priest

A couple notes about NY-23

As someone who misses the liberal wing of the Republican party, I am pleased that Scozzafava was vindicated. Michelle Malkin (who I actually went to college with) is doing her best to spin this. I suspect she wrote two articles. If Owens had lost, she would have declared victory. He won, so she is still declaring victory, but over the Republican elite.

The truth, however, is that a Democrat has won in a district that has gone Republican for more than a century. This should have been an easy district for Republicans to win.

But her band of revolutionaries lost it. The anti-tax, flat earth wing of the corporate party didn’t fly with the traditionalist old school voters considering bread and butter issues prior to the confused ideologies of the Armey/Palin wing. They didn’t need a carpet bagger or outsiders wanting to fight the culture war in NY state.

Note that both Republicans who won in VA and NJ are moderates who may govern responsibly. In the end, this election had little to do with Obama. But people do wish things might move a bit faster. Nate analyzes the data.

Michelle Malkin and her supporters seem content to remain in a minority party, having sacrificed practicality with an authoritarian ideology masking as libertarianism. In the end, for her ideology is more important than governance. And I suspect many people know that when conservatives enter government, they would rather wreck it than run it. Which is why sensible voters won’t go the revolutionary, radical route currently masquerading as real conservatism.

“Liberal” Wing of the Republican Party? There were many. They were conservatives in temperament, but willing to move cautiously for human feeling and integrity.

They supported civil rights, good government, and anti-corruption in both parties.

I suspect that when Obama talks about bi-partisanship, he misses them also. I also bet some Republicans miss them as well. But they have been held hostage by those who demand ideological purity before good government. Whether right or left, the Manichean view that elevates purity and perfection above practicality is a mask for the psychology of tyranny.

Old school, patrician, liberal Republicans knew this, which is why they opposed the radical left. And why they now must oppose the radical right.